


any two people

by foxmagpie



Series: little gifts [12]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Art Hoe Rio, F/M, Road Trip, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 09:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19867048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: Beth and Rio roadtrip to Canada, arrival at their hotel, and spend the day together before they have to go to their meetings.





	any two people

Right now Beth is wearing her usual floral, but she has a suitcase in the van filled with her new clothes for the weekend—lots of very casual but very expensive t-shirts and dark, high-waisted jeans, all charged to the credit card, basically undoing all the payments she’s made these past few months. 

Beth didn’t really understand what was fundamentally different about these t-shirts rather than the ones she could find at, say, The Gap (though she could admit that they were _so_ soft) but Rio had insisted people could tell the difference, and that she needed to project an image that made her look less “suburban.” This meant she needed to look more like she was loaded enough to drop an obscene amount of money for a simple grey scoop neck, apparently. 

Every few minutes or so, Beth glances at her phone, checking to see if she’s missed a message from Rio. He’s picking her up from here, at Emma’s Winter Craft Festival. She’d told him she could meet him anywhere, but this was what he had said worked, and she’s anxious. He’d never responded to her message to let her know when he’s outside, and she _really_ doesn’t want Dean and Rio to see each other. 

First, she’d flat out lied to Dean about this Canada trip, telling him she and Ruby and Annie were headed up to the Toronto Holiday Market Christmas Fair, and even added in that Ruby had gotten them all tickets to Cirque du Soleil as gifts to explain the overnight portion. 

Second, last week, Rio had been agitated that she’d left in the middle of the night to go and take care of Emma. He seemed to think Dean was up to something, or that Beth was choosing Dean somehow, but that wasn’t it at all. 

When she’d gotten home, much later than would be normal if she was just coming from Ruby’s house, she’d expected a frustrated and stressed-out Dean to question her about her whereabouts. She’d expected Dean to be frazzled and flailing (Dean was very sensitive to vomit), but what she found instead was... a supportive co-parent? 

Emma had been curled around Dean on the couch, asleep, her hair damp from sweat. Dean had already taken care of the most difficult parts of everything—he’d told Beth that he’d already stripped the bedding and had started the load in the laundry, that he’d gotten Emma some medicine and some peppermint to smell to settle her stomach, and that she’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep about twenty minutes ago.

The only thing he really asked Beth to handle was putting new sheets and blankets on Emma’s bed so that he could carry her up there to put her sleep. Once Beth was done doing this, however, Emma had woken up again. She threw up once more, and Beth and Dean had both kneeled with her on the bathroom floor, rubbing her back and trying to soothe her. 

Although Rio had been so skeptical of the whole thing, Beth is actually glad she went—it was a relief to see, in action, that Dean could handle these situations on his own, and it felt _good_ to be able to handle a problem together, to be a team. She was feeling optimistic that they could actually maybe do this divorce thing right. Now all they had to do was figure out their living situation, tell the kids, and finish filing the papers.

“Hot chocolate?” 

Beth startles and refocuses from her reverie. Dean’s standing in front of her holding out a small styrofoam cup.

“It tastes _really_ bad, but the money goes to the art program which… looks like it could use a little help,” Dean says, dropping his voice to a whisper. 

Beth chuckles, taking the cup. He’s not wrong. Observing all of this art had tested Beth’s ability to find one nice thing to say about everything, and it was apparent that although Emma was very similar to Beth in many ways, she had _not_ inherited her creative streak. Emma was no artist, and Beth had resorted to giving feedback like, “Oh! Wow. That’s very _blue_!”

“Did you notice how Emma’s drawings all, um…?” Dean says, abashed.

“Look like inappropriate body parts?” Beth supplies. 

“Yes!” Dean’s face breaks out into a smile and Beth can’t help but smile, too. “Like, I can kind of see how that might happen with those flowers—” 

“Poinsettias.”

“Yeah, those… but Rudolph’s _face_?”

Beth tries to suppress her laughter—she doesn’t want to draw the attention of Emma, whose only a few feet away from them looking at someone else’s collection with Jane—but Dean keeps going. “But that wasn’t even the worst one. Did you see the one called ‘White Christmas’? 

“No?” 

“You must’ve. It had our house in the background, and you and I had these, uh, very large _shovels_ , apparently? Like we’re shoveling snow? Although they look more like—”

“Oh, my god. _That’s_ what was happening in that one? I tried not to study it too long. It _really_ looked like—” 

“I _know_. It didn’t help that everything was covered in a blanket of white, with the snowflakes looking like little drops of—” 

Beth is laughing, _really_ laughing—she even pushes Dean a little in the chest, trying to get him to stop describing Emma’s art, and they’re just cracking up together, and she’s actually almost sort of having sort of a good time with Dean for once when— 

“Elizabeth.” 

“Oh!” she says, and she jumps a little so that her hot chocolate spills out and a few flecks land on Dean’s white shirt. “Um, hi.”

A stranger could mistake Rio’s posture for someone at ease—hands in the pockets, a smile on his face—but Beth knows better.

Dean’s face falls, and Beth just knows everything’s about to implode. But then he sucks his teeth and, turning away from Rio and looking only at Beth, says, “I thought you were going straight to Toronto from here with Annie and Ruby. You got a, uh, work thing first?” He glances at Rio, but quickly redirects to Beth. 

Beth realizes that Dean has asked this question because he _wants_ to believe the lie. He’s giving her an out. He doesn’t want to know that Beth is going to Toronto with Rio, he doesn’t want to think about them spending a whole weekend together days before Christmas—and Beth is happy to let him have this. “Yeah. Just a quick thing first, and then I’ll meet up with the girls.” She gives him a soft smile. 

Rio lets out one small, short laugh under his breath—loud enough that Dean can hear it. Dean turns towards Rio, but his face is slack and he doesn’t say anything. Beth’s barely breathing.

This is when Jane comes barreling up to the group, her little feet running quickly until she uses her last step to jump into the air and land with her feet planted firmly in front of Rio. “Mommy’s friend! Hi!” 

Rio drops to Jane’s level and balances on the balls of his feet. He holds out his hand for a high-five, which Jane enthusiastically gives. “Hey, boss. It’s been a minute.”

Jane scrunches up her face. “Nuh uh! Minutes are short. My teacher says so.” 

Rio laughs. “You right about that,” he says. “I forgot how smart you are at tellin’ time. I just mean it’s been a li’l while since I seen you last.”

“Oh,” Jane says, and she smiles shyly. “Yeah.”

“You still got your Doc McStuffins toy?”

“Yeah!”

“Good,” he says. “You must be gettin’ excited for Christmas, yeah?”

“Yeah! Mommy says this Christmas is extra special.”

“That right?” Rio says, and he glances over his shoulder at Beth. “Why’s that?”

Jane shrugs and juts out her bottom lip. “I dunno! Mommy, why is Christmas extra special this year?” 

Beth blinks once, still absorbing the situation. Dean stands next to her, jaw tight, eyes wide. His tolerance threshold has been surpassed now that Rio is talking to Jane as if it’s nothing, as if it’s normal.

“Um,” Beth says. She’s been going on about this because it’s the last Christmas where they’ll all be _together_ , and she wants them to savor it and cherish it before they’ll be dealing with scheduling arrangements and split time, but Jane doesn’t know any of that yet, obviously. “Because you’re five this year." 

Jane beams at Rio, like this is a logical explanation.

“Well, that makes sense,” he says softly, nodding at Jane. He ruffles her hair and stands. “Me and your mommy gotta go now, but I’ll see you around, aight, li’l boss?” 

Rio walks to Beth, leaving less than an inch between their bodies. He reaches around her body to squeeze her upper arm softly and whispers into her ear, “Get your stuff and find me outside.” 

Dean definitely saw that, so Beth busies herself saying goodbye to Jane, and then calls over Emma, Kenny, and Danny to say goodbye to them, too. She doesn’t allow herself to be left alone with Dean before she gives him a wave and walks out of the cafeteria into the cold night air. 

The caddy is parked at the curb, trunk popped. Beth goes around it to the van and pulls out her things. Her hands are clammy and she fumbles a bit putting the suitcase into the back of the car, even though it’s not that heavy. 

Rio doesn’t say anything when she gets into the car, he just silently takes to the road. Beth fidgets in her seat as she watches the cityscape of Detroit flicker by as the car moves onto the I-94, going north instead of south.

Beth clears her throat. “Aren’t we crossing at Detroit-Windsor?” 

“No,” Rio says, and Beth notices that it’s not his nonchalant _nah_. He’s still agitated, though—over _what_ , exactly, Beth isn’t sure. Because she was laughing with Dean? Well, so what? She’d overheard him with Elena, _seen_ them exhaust themselves of a fight and fall into laughter together. It didn’t mean anything, it was just the sign of a healthy relationship between two co-parents. It was _normal_. 

“Don’t be like that,” Beth tells him, but she keeps staring out the window.

Rio lets out a small, mean laugh. “Yeah, like what?” 

“Angry.” There’s a long stretch of silence and then Beth says, “It’s like you _want_ Dean to know about u—” She almost says _us_ , but changes gears to say “—about _this_ so badly.”

Rio’s fingers twitch on the steering wheel, and he says petulantly, “Yeah, maybe I do.”

Beth sighs. She doesn’t know how to react to that because she can’t tell if this is just some possessive staking-a-claim bullshit, or whether there’s more to it than that. Finally, she says, “I just want what you have.”

This admission surprises Rio. “What?”

“I mean… what you have with Elena. You can fight and make up in ten minutes. It doesn’t seem like… like she’s holding anything over your head. I mean, you said she knows the big stuff, but doesn’t worry herself about everything else. I want that with Dean.” 

“You won’t have it,” Rio says simply, shrugging one shoulder.

Beth makes a noise of strangled frustration. “You can’t even let me _hope_ I could have it? You hate Dean that much?”

Couldn’t she have it? Didn’t this last week prove that she could have it? It wasn’t just Emma’s fever—Dean had also pulled his weight disciplining Kenny (and he _loathes_ the thought of Kenny doing anything less than worshipping him) when Kenny got caught punching his sister, and he had reacted with surprising calm to finding Danny playing dolls with the girls (this was a huge improvement from when he found Kenny doing the same a few years ago—Beth had fought with him about that for _weeks_ ). 

“What _I_ think of Dean don’t matter. It’s about what _you_ think of Dean.” 

“What does that mean?” Beth knew they had sunk to some really low points lately, and she had been really furious with him, but it wasn’t like she _hated_ him. 

“Elena and I? We respect each other. Full stop. So, no, you and Dean aint gonna have what we have. That’s it.” He says this as if it’s perfectly obvious. 

“I respect Dean!” Beth protests immediately without really considering the veracity of the accusation. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she insists stubbornly. She _respects_ Dean. Well, she _generally_ respects him. She respects him _enough_. 

Rio lets out a noise of forced laughter. “Oh, mama. No. You don’t.”

Beth sits, arms crossed, indignant. If Beth were to glance over at him, she would see that Rio’s only pretending to be annoyed now; his grimace has softened to amusement at Beth’s hypocrisy.

“I aint complainin’,” he starts, “but Elizabeth, you here with me right now, and I put a bullet in his chest. And you think I didn’t notice that he was squarin’ up the bill while I was fuckin’ you against that wall?” 

The words settle over Beth. She chews her lip. She’s not stupid, she knows Rio must have picked up on some of it, but for him to lay it out so clearly, her transgressions—what must he think of her? 

Quietly, she says, “He cheated on me, you know. A lot. Like, often and with many—with four women.” 

Rio looks over at her. “Figured he did somethin’, but didn't know the details.”

“I’m not—I’m wasn’t cheating when we—It’s different. We were already separated.”

Rio nods, but his lips are pursed. Beth imagines he wants to say _Then what were you doin’ out together?_ but he leaves it alone. 

“Look, I aint saying y’all can’t make it work. I’m just saying you aint gonna be friends with that kinda bad blood.” 

“You and Elena are friends? You _never_ had bad blood?” Beth says, and she feels the heat of jealousy lick at her, but what is she jealous over? Sitting here next to Rio makes her flustered—she’s can’t parse out whether she’s envious over their parenting relationship, or if it’s the reverence Rio clearly feels for her. Why did they break up, anyway? 

Rio’s lip curves just slightly. “Cute.”

“What?”

“You. Jealous.”

“I’m not—”

“Yeah, you are.” He gives her that exaggerated, wide-eyed innocent look. “It’s funny, considerin’ you still livin’ with your ex and you don’t want him to know nothin’ about—what’s that you call it? _‘This’?_ ” He mocks the way she often gestures vaguely between them.

She ignores that. “So how’d you do it, then? How did you two end up with no bad blood in that breakup?” 

Rio lip twitches. “Long story.”

“Long car ride,” counters Beth.

His face hardens. “Fine. Not a story I want to tell, then.” 

Beth sighs, defeated, and then, feeling testy, says, “Like you want anyone to know anything, either.”

“Hmm?” 

“I mean, you want Dean to know so badly—and he does, he does know some stuff. But so does my sister, and my best friend, and—and my kids don’t _know,_ but they aren’t oblivious. Are you suggesting Elena would know anything if she hadn’t walked in? That you’ve told a sister? That any one of your boys has any idea? Your son?” She thinks about how she’d overheard Marcus tell Elena that he thought his dad liked her, but she would never tell _him_ that. 

Rio smiles wide, which was _not_ the reaction Beth expected. _What does_ that _mean_ , she wonders, but all he says is, “Fair enough.” 

Beth wants to stay irritated, but Rio looks at her and his grin is so amused, so mischievous, that Beth finds that she ends up laughing at herself. Rio settles a hand on Beth’s leg, like it’s nothing. Beth just sits rigidly. She never knows how to react to this—Rio is always so tactile, but Dean had never been. Besides sex, Dean had really barely touched her, at least not for years. He’d possessively touched her when other people were around, sure, but she and Rio are just sitting here alone in a darkened car. What’s she supposed to do while he touches her? Just sit there? Touch him back? 

“So why are we going north?” she asks.

“Next to San Ysidro in San Diego, the D&C is the busiest place to cross in the country. I don’t like waitin’. We’ll go through Port Huron.”

Beth nods, and they fall into a comfortable silence that stretches for miles. Beth keeps looking at his hand just draped there on her knee. His fingers are long and, though she can’t feel this through her jeans, she knows his palms are rough and calloused. Every so often he rubs his thumb back and forth. Her tactic of doing nothing seems to be working, because he hasn’t taken his hand away yet.

* * *

When they’re nearly to the port, Beth asks Rio if he can pull off the interstate so she can use the restroom. She wouldn’t mind some road trip snacks—they’ll be on the road for about four hours total—but she suspects that Rio doesn’t eat in the car. He goes to fill up the tank while Beth goes inside, but when she comes back, there’s a small plastic bag filled with waters, two gummy fruit snacks, two candy bars, two sticks of jerky, and two bags of chips on the floor of the passenger side. 

“What’s this?” she asks when Rio returns to the car. 

“Snacks?” He starts the car. “You never been on a road trip?” 

“No, I mean… I just assumed you didn’t eat in your car. Or do anything in your car. Do you use your car? It’s spotless.” She runs a finger along the door and picks up no dust, nothing. 

Rio smirks, but he doesn’t answer as he clicks his blinker on and looks both ways before pulling out of the gas station.

“You got a lot of things,” Beth comments. 

“Didn’t know what you liked.” 

Beth takes one of the sticks of jerky and is about to offer Rio the other one when he says, “Shit.” 

He’s staring at the rearview mirror so Beth glances behind to see red and blue lights flashing at them.

“That’s weird,” Beth says. “You weren’t doing anything. You’re not on, like, a wanted list, are you?”

Rio raises his eyebrows and looks at her through the side of his eyes. He pulls his gun out of his waistband and hands it to her. “Put this under the seat.” Then he pulls over to the side of the road, just two or three businesses down from the gas station.

Beth feels her heart beating loudly in her chest, but she’s confused—they’d barely been on the road, and Rio used his turn signal. _He must have a tail light out or something,_ she rationalizes. _It’s nothing. He’s not on any lists, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to cross in Canada, right? And he’s careful, and plus—_

Rio rolls down his window and then places his hands flat at ten and two on the steering wheel. 

“License and registration?” the officer asks.

“Yes, sir. Elizabeth, could you open the glovebox and hand me the registration, please?” Rio asks. “I will need to reach into my back pocket to get my ID.” 

_Yes, sir?_ Rio doesn’t even sound like himself. 

The cop leans down to peer further into the car and take them in. He stares at Beth for what feels like an entire minute, then looks back to Rio before standing tall again. Her heart is hammering and her hands are shaky as Beth grabs the documentation and hands it to Rio. He passes it along with his license back to the officer before putting his hands back on the steering wheel in the same position. 

“I’m sorry, what are we being pulled over for?” Beth asks, and she tries to make her voice extra polite and sugary. She wants to wash away any of his suspicions—they’re just two normal people in a car, that’s all. 

The cop ignores her question, though, and then asks, “Would you mind stepping out of the car, ma’am?” 

“Why?” Beth asks before she can stop herself, but Rio says icy calm, “Just do it, Elizabeth.”

Beth gets out of the car and the cop beckons her to the back wheel. She pushes her shoulders back and plasters on a smile. 

“What’s the problem, officer?” Beth asks, but there’s a bit of an edge to her voice now. He hasn’t given them any information yet—nothing. This entire thing doesn’t make sense. 

“Do you know that man?” the cop asks. 

_What does he mean by that?_ Beth panics. _Does he know who Rio is, what he does?_

“We’re friends,” Beth says slowly. 

“‘Friends,’” the officer repeats. He looks at her as if he’s trying to figure out if she’s lying. “You want me to believe that?”

Beth doesn’t appreciate the insinuation he’s making. “I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t,” Beth says, defiant now. 

“See, now, usually I don’t see women looking like _you_ with men like _him_ , and when I do, there’s usually something to be concerned about. I’m here to help, ma’am, so just tell me: are you safe? Did you enter this vehicle willingly with Mr. Contreras?” 

_Contreras? Is that Rio’s last name?_

_“Yes,”_ Beth insists. She has a flashback to telling Agent Turner that she and Rio were a one-night stand, but she can tell she needs to convince this cop of more. He seems to think Rio is going to hurt her. She sighs and lies sweetly, “Look, officer, I appreciate your concern. I know what it looks like on the outside. I’m, um, recently divorced, you know?” She wiggles her left hand at him, pointing to the empty ring finger. “And I know we’re an odd pair, but you know… sometimes you just need a fling that’s really _different_ from what you’re used to.” She plasters on a fake smile. “I’m perfectly fine. I know this man.”

“You do?” the officer asks, still skeptical. 

“Yes. I can prove it, if that’s what you need?” He just waits for her to speak, and she can’t believe she really has to do this. “If you look at his license, you should see that he lives in Apartment 3B on Cadieux Road in Detroit.”

The cop glances at it, but makes no immediate move to let her go.

Beth wants to roll her eyes, but she restrains herself. “You want more? Okay. He has one kid. He’s the youngest of three sisters. If I had to guess, I’d say his favorite color is green—which might surprise you since he likes to wear all black. He likes to listen to Spanish pop stars. He doesn’t own a TV, just a record player. He makes an amazing papaya and watermelon salad. He’s a neat freak... Should I continue? Because I have more.” She stares hard at the cop like, _Try me_.

“Alright, ma’am, return to the vehicle, please,” the cop says, and there’s a little bit of annoyance in his tone. He walks back over to the driver’s side after Beth gets in and raps his knuckles along the roof of the car above Rio’s head. 

“Mr. Contreras, can you verify for me how many siblings you have?”

Rio’s fingers twitch, but he doesn’t even question the strange turn of events. “Three, sir.”

“Older, younger? Brothers, sisters?” 

“All older, all sisters.”

“Alright,” the cop says, and he passes the registration and license back to Rio. “You’re free to go. Just be more careful next time, alright?”

“Excuse me?” Beth asks, dropping any pretenses of politeness. “You never actually _told_ us what we were being pulled over for?”

The cop looks back at her. “Oh, yeah. Uh, no blinker on that turn out of the gas station.” 

“Yes, he did,” Beth protests. “And even if he didn’t, it’s a one-way exit! There’s a median in the road!”

The cop shrugs. “Drive safe. Have a good night.” 

“Thank you,” Rio says, voice tight.

Beth’s speechless until they get back onto the I-94, and then she turns to stare at Rio with her forehead wrinkled in utter confusion. “What the hell was that? I did not expect you to ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir’ him! He had _no_ valid reason for pulling you over—”

“I know,” Rio says. “And?”

“And—and—that’s not right!”

“ _I_ know,” Rio says. “ _And_?” 

“What do you mean? You’re acting like—like—”

“Like I spent the last twenty years of my life drivin’ while brown?” Rio asks, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Like I seen my pop get pulled over more times than I could count? Yeah.”

“I didn’t know,” Beth says, imagining a young Rio watch his father treated as less than. Rio smirks at her like _Yeah, I didn’t tell you._ “So why are you so _polite_ through the whole thing? He was just acting on prejudice—he thought I was being abducted just because—because you're Mexican and you have a neck tattoo!”

Rio shakes his head, like he can't believe Beth can't believe this. “Because I adapt to the situation at hand. Like you gonna have to at these meetings. The quickest, safest way to get out of that situation is to do what I did. Do I like it? Nah. I know it’s bullshit. But I don’t want to get a gun pulled on me, and I don’t want the attention that comes with pullin’ _my_ gun on a cop—unless it’s absolutely necessary.” 

“Well, it made me mad,” Beth says simply, smoothing her hands on her jeans. 

“Yeah, and you got some leeway to sass a cop when you feelin’ frustrated. I don’t,” Rio says. “But you gonna learn fast that you gotta play lots of things smart instead of hard. Keep a clear head. You can only get so mouthy with the people we meet with—and they gonna press your buttons, make comments about you, your body, whatever.” 

“I’m just supposed to let them? That’s just the price I pay as a woman?” 

“I didn’t say that,” Rio says, and he gives her a serious look. “I just said you gonna have to keep a clear head. Think about what you want and what you wanna avoid, then calculate how to make it happen. I wanted to get back on the road, and I didn’t want that cop to find a reason to search the car and find our guns. Sometimes standin’ up for yourself is the right thing to do, sometimes lettin’ things go is the right thing to do. Just depends.”

Beth lets the advice wash over her. They’re quiet again for a stretch, and then they go through the checkpoint at the border. The agent there also gives them a funny look, but doesn’t do anything beyond asking them what they’re headed to Canada for. 

“The Toronto Holiday Market Christmas Fair,” Beth lies easily. “And I’m _trying_ to convince him we should see Cirque du Soleil, but _some_ people have no taste.”

Rio rolls his eyes as if he’s actually just annoyed at his nagging girlfriend. The agent chuckles a bit and hands them back their passports, and they’re back on the road. 

Beth gets lost in her thoughts for a while, thinking about all the things she said to the cop to prove that she knew him, about how she’d said there was more, but besides Elena and the names of his sisters, _did_ she really have much more? His father had come up twice now, she supposed, so she knew Rio had been subjected to seeing him questioned by cops often, and that he had died young. Rio had also mentioned that he didn’t want the cop to pull a gun on him—

“Did you dad get murdered by a cop?” she blurts.

Rio startles at the question. “Huh? No. What the hell?”

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I didn’t mean—that was so rude. I’m sorry.”

“Where’d _that_ come from?” 

“I was just kind of thinking about what I know about you,” she admits. “I had to convince the cop that we were together, that you hadn’t abducted me, so I told him, you know, like little things that I knew about you to prove it. Favorite color. Number of sisters. Et cetera. And then I was piecing together things you said… and then I wondered…”

Rio glances at her, surprised. “I don’t have a favorite color.”

“Of course you do,” Beth says, latching onto this new topic, relieved to change the subject because she’s horrified at her own impropriety. “Everyone does.”

Rio clucks. “Nah. If that was the question he’d asked me to verify, you woulda gotten me arrested, ma. They woulda put me away for kidnappin’ such an _innocent_ , _naive_ white girl.”

“Oh, shut up,” Beth says, hitting him on the arm lightly. “If you _had_ to choose, what color would you pick?" 

Rio raises his eyebrows. “If I _had_ to pick a favorite color? Why would I have to do that?” 

“Gun to your head.” 

“Damn, ma. We gotta get your better criteria for puttin’ guns to people’s heads.” 

Beth laughs. “Just think about it.”

“Okay,” he says, and he does think for ten or fifteen seconds. “I guess... green.”

“Aha!” she cheers. “That’s what I said. See, I know you.” 

“Oh you do, huh?” They smile at each other. It’s silent for a few moments, and then Rio says, “It was an accident.”

“Huh?” 

“My pop.”

“Oh,” she says quietly. She plays with her fingers. “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, uh, he worked construction.” Rio presses his shoulders back and runs a hand along the side of his hair. “One day somethin’ fell. He was wearin’ the helmet, but he got a concussion anyway, I guess. No insurance, no doctor, no doctor's note. And we needed the money, so he kept goin’ to work. Ended up fallin’ off a ladder.” 

Beth instinctively reaches out to him, putting her hand on his thigh like he did earlier. Rio drops his own hand from the steering wheel and squeezes her fingers.

“Yeah. So.” He exhales loudly. 

Maybe it’s how dark the car is. The sky is cloudless and they aren’t anywhere near a city right now, so there’s not even light pollution. Maybe that darkness provides a cover, or maybe it’s that Rio can’t study her in here, not when his eyes have to be on the road. Or it could be that she doesn’t want his admission to hang in the air alone. She swallows and then confides, “My dad walked out on us. My mom… she struggled. Struggles, maybe. I haven’t seen her in years. I’m not really sure if...”

Rio glances at her, lets her know he’s listening, but his eyes flick back to the road and Beth steels herself to continue. 

“She had a hard time getting out of bed. Lost so many jobs it was hard to get new ones. So I did. I paid the bills. Well, barely. And I took care of Annie.”

“How old were you?”

“Well, I basically took care of Annie from the day she was born,” Beth says. She curls her hair around her finger. “Even at their best, things weren’t good. But my dad left when I was fifteen.” 

Rio nods, and he squeezes Beth’s hand again.

“Speaking of Annie…” She hesitates. Annie had talked to Beth about not being able to afford Sadie’s hormone therapy medication. Beth suggested asking Gregg, but Annie said no, Sadie wasn’t ready to come out to him yet—he was concerned that his dad had too much on his plate between living in a hotel, the divorce, and the new baby, so he didn’t want to add one more thing. Annie was pretty concerned about it, though. She really wanted Sadie to get the drugs that suppressed puberty so Sadie wouldn’t have to deal with body dysmorphia. “She, uh, needs some drugs. For her kid. And I thought maybe you would be able to help.”

“What we talkin’ about?”

“Like, hormone therapy drugs? Can you get those?”

“Sure, that’s easy. But—” 

“But _what_?” Beth asks harshly, assuming Rio might be about to say something judgmental about Sadie’s transition. 

“Jeez, ma, relax,” Rio says. “ _But_ your sister aint exactly in my good graces right now, know what I mean?”

“I know she lost those drugs, but we washed the cash—”

“She didn’t lose ‘em. She threw ‘em away. Threw away my _money_. I was generous lettin’ y’all pay it back by washin’ cash—but that had nothing to do with the shit I had to pay for not deliverin’.” 

Beth wants to tell him it wasn't Annie, it was Ruby, but that doesn't seem like it would really help much. “Please, just consider—” 

Rio interrupts her. “Look, I respect that you been takin’ care of your sister for her whole life, but you gotta stop fighting her battles and let her handle ‘em.”

“But—” 

“I’ll hear her out, aight? I’m not promisin’ nothin’, though, so don’t go fillin’ her head with ideas.” 

"Okay," Beth says, nodding. "Thank you."

* * *

They stop for dinner at a divey diner that Rio apparently loves, and the rest of the car ride goes smoothly. They chat here and there about nothing important, but both are content to just be quiet together for much of the drive, too.

Finally, they pull up to a large brick building sitting on a corner. It has huge windows but no sign, so Beth isn’t really sure what to expect. When they walk in, Beth realizes they are at some sort of independent hotel—The Broadview. She’s never stayed anywhere fancier than a Phoenix Inn and Suites, and even that had been rare. 

While Rio checks in and a concierge takes their bags, Beth reads a pamphlet on the counter about how the hotel has 58 boutique guestrooms and that the hotel blends “classic elements with unexpected eclectic accents to create a thoroughly modern approach to luxury.” She also learns there’s a vinyl record player in each room with a stack of records. 

_Yep,_ she thinks. _Sounds like Rio_. 

She looks around, taking it all in. The elevators are bright gold with art deco embellishments. That same gold design is incorporated in the floor, which is some sort of brown marble with golden triangles inlaid seamlessly. 

When they get up to their room, Beth is surprised to find that she sort of loves it. They’re in a corner room, so the room has five giant windows and long, floor-to-ceiling red curtains to keep the sun out. While the windows dominate most of the wall, there’s actually some vintage floral wallpaper beneath them. The bed is large and luxurious, and although she doesn’t care for the thoroughly modern end tables, she has to admit that the personal bar is nice with the vessel sink. The bathroom has gorgeous marble walls and a huge walk-in shower. She could get used to this. 

Beth sits on the edge of the bed. She’s exhausted. Between fighting about Dean, getting pulled over by the cop, learning about Rio’s father’s death, and sharing even the most broad strokes picture of her own childhood for Rio, she feels like the drive was twice as long as it was in reality. All she wants to do is curl up beneath these covers.

Rio tinkers around the room and in their suitcases, cataloging that both of their guns are there and loaded with the safeties on. Then he disappears into the bathroom and starts brushing his teeth. 

She suddenly feels nervous. This trip doesn’t feel like business—it feels intimate. Sure, the hotel has a very Rio feel to it in some ways, but it also feels like _Beth_ in others. Somehow she doesn’t think he stays here when he has other business up in Toronto. And how much was he spending per night here? Certainly more than a Phoenix Inn, and she felt _that_ was expensive. Was she supposed to be splitting this with him? Was it coming out of her cut? She hadn’t agreed to that—but then again, she couldn’t just make him _pay_ for it—

“What’s wrong?” Rio asks, looking over at her when he walks back into the room. 

“What? Nothing.” 

“Your face is all scrunched,” Rio says, and he imitates her expression. 

“It’s nothing,” Beth says. She gets up and starts rifling through her bag for her own toothbrush and toothpaste. “Just tired.”

“Aight,” Rio says, shrugging. “I’ll wait.”

“For what?” Beth calls as she puts her toothbrush under the water in the bathroom.

“You don’t exactly have a history of keepin’ things to yourself when something’s buggin’ you.”

Beth peeks out from the bathroom to give Rio an annoyed look. When she comes back into the room, Rio’s in joggers and a t-shirt (both black, of course) and laying on the top of the covers playing on his phone. She’s a little relieved he’s already dressed down for bed, that it doesn’t seem like he’s going to pursue sex—she feels a little emotionally raw from the drive, and she’s feeling jittery. 

There’s nothing _wrong_ with the fact that this is intimate, per se. It’s just… it’s becoming real that this—they—are _something_ , even if it’s unnamed, even if it’s unclear. Thinking about that is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying, and she feels like she needs to wrap her head around it. Just last week they slept in the same bed together for the first time, but they’d fallen asleep all wonky and she’d left in the middle of the night. Now here they are, nearly 250 miles from home, and they’re about to share a bed for real—properly side by side, properly dressed down in pajamas. She hasn’t slept next to anyone like that in a long time. It’s almost embarrassing, but sleeping together is something she associates with marriage, even more so than sex. The quiet domesticity of it, the vulnerability of it, how used to having another body in a bed you could get… There was a reason that Beth had kicked Dean out of her bed long before she’d felt ready to kick him out of the house. 

Fighting against her natural inclination, Beth walks over to her suitcase and begins changing into her pajamas right there in front of Rio. She can feel his eyes on her and her skin feels hot. _He’s not scrutinizing you_ , she reminds herself. Her blouse comes off, her pants, and then her bra. She can’t look at him, but if he’s looking at her, he must certainly see the red bursting across her chest. It’s not until she’s got on her matching black pajama set that she can turn towards him, and she sees that he’s smiling, just barely, his eyes alight.

“What?” 

“Nothin’.”

_“What?”_

“Nothin’,” he repeats, but his eyes are still bright. He puts his phone on the side table and gets under the covers. She remembers when she called him about the dubby, how she’s woken him up, how strange it had been to think of him doing something as normal as sleeping—and now here she is, watching him in his bedtime routine. 

He keeps watching her. Beth squares her shoulders as she walks across the room and gets into the bed. Turning away from him so she’s looking at the opposite wall, she tries to focus on settling her breathing. The light from Rio’s bedside lamp clicks off, and they’re shrouded in darkness. Beth’s hyperaware that there’s a gap between their bodies in the bed, and she can feel Rio shift around and get comfortable. The knowledge that they each have their own space actually relieves her—she’s gotten so used to sleeping alone, and this semblance of normalcy calms her. Her breathing evens out and she feels sleep starting to take her when suddenly she feels Rio’s hand at her lower back, sliding from to rest on her hip. She doesn’t say anything, and neither does he; his hand stays there, and they fall asleep like that, just barely touching.

* * *

When Beth wakes up, Rio’s still sleeping, which means she gives herself a moment to just look at him. His face is slack, his mouth slightly open, his brow smooth. It’s nice to see him like this, with his guard down.

Assuming Rio won’t have the patience for her getting ready routine once he wakes up, Beth decides it’s a good time to take a shower and work on her hair and makeup. She steps into the hot water and lets it wash over her and begins to lather up. 

She’s still torn between whether she should curl it or straighten it, whether it should be up or down? She thinks the loose waves she’s been wearing it in lately are too "housewife" (or, well, Annie had told her they were, so). She wishes there’d been more women in Rio’s operation, so she could model her look off them. How to do her hair is not exactly a question she wants to ask him. 

This is what’s going through her mind when Rio’s naked body is suddenly pressed against hers from behind under the hot stream of water from the shower. She can feel his chest on her back, his hips against the top of her ass, his thighs at the backs of hers. He buries his face into her soapy neck and nips at her. Eyes fluttering closed, Beth tilts her head to give him better access, and she sighs, pressing herself into him as she lets the soap slide down her body into the drain. She can feel him growing harder. 

Rio’s hands start at her upper thighs and he ghosts them up and up, landing and splaying them just underneath her breasts as his breath grows hot and heavy on her skin. He’s sucking at her neck, and she’s making small noises of pleasure. Beth reaches up and behind her to run her fingers across his hair, and they stay like this for a minute, just enjoying touching each other, until Rio drops his fingers to her cunt and begins to touch her, first softly, teasingly—and then his slips his fingers inside of her, but he can’t go as deeply as either of them want in the position that they’re in. 

Beth turns her head, forcing Rio to abandon her neck, but she uses her hand on his cheek to keep his face turned towards her so she can kiss him. It’s sloppy and their lips only barely meet, badly angled as they are, but it’s enough to taste him, to feel the wetness of his mouth, to get her wanting more. 

In a flash, Rio spins Beth around and she’s up against the wall, and he’s up against her, kissing her, his fingers in her wet hair. Beth reaches down to take him in her hand, pumping back and forth, and when she teases his head, he makes a noise against her mouth. 

In one swift movement, his hands move from her hair down to the backs of her thighs, and he hikes her up against the tiled wall. Beth’s hands grip at his neck to support herself, and he uses this leverage and the sturdiness of his body to balance her for a moment while he positions himself to push slowly into her. Beth’s wet, but since he wasn’t able to use his fingers properly, she’s tighter than usual and there’s more friction. He takes it slowly, moving in and out of her shallowly until things move more fluidly, and then he’s pounding into her, her ass bouncing against the wall, her spine digging into it, and she’s moaning as she sucks on his ear. 

Beth tightens her legs around his hips, and fuck, he feels so good filling her up just like that—and it must feel good to him, too, because suddenly he picks up speed and his movements are less controlled, and she feels his cock twitching inside of her.

Beth sighs in contentment when he pulls out of her, but his eyes are still dark. “You didn’t come,” he says, and he presses his lips to her collar bone. 

“That’s okay,” Beth says. “It was still good.”

“No,” Rio says. “It aint okay.” 

And he drops to his knees and eats her out until the water is cold and her toes are curling on the shower floor.

* * *

Beth has a towel around her hair and her curler is on (she decides she’ll go for curled and up in a messy bun). She’s applying mascara in the mirror and beside her, Rio puts on deodorant. He’s wearing just his briefs, and she’s wearing her jeans with just her bra. 

“I tried to wake up early so that you wouldn’t have to wait for me to get ready,” she says.

“It’s aight. I’ll order breakfast to the room.”

“How long do I have? Before we have to leave? I mean, when’s our meeting?”

“Tonight. Late,” Rio says simply. He walks into the bedroom and Beth can see her confused expression in the mirror. 

“How late?” she calls. 

“What, you worried it’s gonna be past your bedtime or somethin’?”

“No. I just… Why did we have to leave last night?” she asks, popping her head into the room. She takes the towel off and flips over, rubbing it against her damp hair to try and dry it some more. “What are we doing during the day?”

“Whatever we want.” He’s not looking at her, he’s almost actively looking _away_ from her, digging around in his suitcase (she’s amused at this—everything in there is black, so what does it matter what he pulls out to wear today?). 

“Like…?” 

“Like, whatever we want,” he shrugs, putting on his beanie. “So get ready so we can go do it, yeah?”

* * *

Rio’s coyness, it turns out, was just a mask for the fact that apparently, he turns into an entirely different person out of the country. Being away from Detroit—away from everything, Dean, the kids, even work, temporarily—softens him. He takes her to a café after breakfast (coffee for her, tea for him) and then to an art museum where he tells her about the different abstract art techniques (she pretends not to hate these drawings with their blobs and their technicolor—while he openly hates the classical art section she drags him to, calling everything “boring”). They go to a few galleries, and he buys a piece that is definitely not his style (“a gift,” he says) and then he takes her to lunch at a hole-in-the-wall seafood restaurant. Afterwards, they actually end up in a toy store, where he finds a few things for Marcus, and where Beth window shops, dreaming of the future where her bank account isn’t hovering just above zero. He tells her Marcus will be in México this Christmas visiting Elena’s parents, and that he hates having to split the holidays, so he always goes a little overboard with the presents on the years he doesn’t have him. Her heart clenches—she loves seeing him as a dad.

Then they spend the rest of the day walking around the city, doing nothing in particular, pretending that there’s not a gun on his hip or in her purse, pretending that he didn’t shoot her husband and she didn’t steal back a dead body from him, pretending that they could be any two people in this city of three million. 

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all... I gotta be honest. This chapter was SO hard to write, and I'm not entirely sure it works?? I wanted this chapter to include their meetings, but it was getting so long and it was draining me because I was having such bad writer's block—so I'm posting it like this and making the meetings a separate chapter! 
> 
> [Here](https://www.thebroadviewhotel.ca/gallery.html) is the hotel that Beth and Rio stay at, though. It was actually really fun looking through hotels and thinking about which one Rio might pick.
> 
> Oh, also, if anyone wants to follow me on Tumblr, [here's my blog.](https://basic-eight.tumblr.com/)


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